New Taunton City Council members consider the work ahead

When Estele Borges got the news Tuesday night that she not only was elected to the City Council, but came in second place behind fellow challenger Jeanne Quinn, she was pleased. And shocked. “I honestly didn’t think that I’d get on the council,” she said.Borges was in a quandary...

When Estele Borges got the news Tuesday night that she not only was elected to the City Council, but came in second place behind fellow challenger Jeanne Quinn, she was pleased. And shocked.

“I honestly didn’t think that I’d get on the council,” she said.

Borges was in a quandary. Because not only had she been elected to the nine-person council, she was re-elected to a second two-year term on the Zoning Board of Appeals.

She ultimately decided she will decline her spot on the ZBA.

“I’m very excited to have won, and I think I can accomplish a lot on the City Council,” she said.

Borges said she initially wasn’t overly confident of victory, mainly because she had declared herself a candidate fairly late in the game.

She’d been laid off as a physical therapist when Steward Health Care eliminated Morton Hospital’s home-care unit in 2012, and she waited three months to run after securing a new job as a marketing director with health-service provider AmeriCare.

The 45-year-old mother of two says she was all the more surprised by her impressive victory because of the anticipation of a low voter turnout, which turned out to be true, with barely 21 percent of voters coming out to the polls.

Quinn, who came in first with more than nine percent of the vote, according to unofficial results, said she’ll be more of an observer than an active participant at her first council meeting next Tuesday.

“I’ll be there as an onlooker. I need to get my feet wet,” she said.

Quinn did, however, say that she considers hiring more police officers and attracting more businesses to Taunton as priorities.

Former councilor Gerald Croteau, who mounted an unsuccessfully mayoral run against Hoye in 2011, said he relishes the idea of picking up where he left off.

“I’m humbled and grateful for being elected,” Croteau, 76, said.

The former school department superintendent said Taunton faces major financial hurdles in terms of abiding by a federal and state mandate to upgrade the city’s wastewater treatment plant. At the same time, Croteau said one can’t lose sight of the need to hire more officers to an aging police department.

Croteau says he’s not convinced, according to a feasibility study, that it will cost at least $15 million to repair the arson- and water-damaged City Hall.

“We need to be careful with our money,” said Croteau, adding that “with all the problems we have, it’s gonna be an interesting year.”